


Strawberry Roan

by MarcyBel



Category: Midnight Cowboy (1969)
Genre: AU at the end cause I can't accept the real end of the movie, Cowboys, Fever Dreams, Fluff, I am having so many formatting problems holy shit, M/M, Sick Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-03
Updated: 2019-02-03
Packaged: 2019-10-21 18:01:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17647286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarcyBel/pseuds/MarcyBel
Summary: Rico says some surprising things to Joe whilst suffering from a fever.





	Strawberry Roan

**Author's Note:**

> Well, the fics up again, after a long struggle to get it to flow better, so, enjoy this gay stuff

Joe picked up a worn blanket off the ground, eyes tracking from the floor to Rico, who was shivering in bed. Rico was wrapped in the large jacket he'd told Joe a friend had given him, (Rico's signature bullshit as always) and it seemed to dwarf him more than ever in the candlelit darkness of their flat. 

"Here." Joe said softly, unsure if Rico was asleep or not and not wanting to wake him if he was. He slung the blanket around Rico's shoulders, standing by the bed. In a way, he looked comfortable, lying on his side (Joe had recommended that, his grandma always said if you had a cough you slept on your side) with the blanket drawn up tight around him, but when you got close the sweat shone on Rico's face and his breathing sounded borderline bronchial. Whatever was screwing up Rico's lungs, Joe wished he could take it from him. Let it be him, Joe Buck, healthier than an ox, that was sick for a change.

In the past he wouldn't have cared if Rico had dropped dead, (slimey bastard had cheated him out of twenty bucks, and Joe Buck liked to think he didn't forget so easily about the things done against him) but now everything was different. Rico had earned the equivalent of that money he'd stolen back just by sticking around, and had given him a place to stay when he needed it. 

Sure, it wasn't the best home, but it was the best Rico could do for him. Joe didn't know what he'd have done without Rico, in retrospect. His rat face showing up in a cafe like that, it had been a blessing. In a morally grey disguise. He needed Rico, now. And he owed him one.

Even when so melancholy, Joe smiled. Yeah, he'd go three rounds with Rico's cold himself if it meant Rico felt better for a while. Then, maybe Rico could be the one looking after him.

As if on cue, Rico started coughing, and Joe jumped to attention like the man he'd been in the army. 

"Hey, you okay?" He bent over Rico, feeling his forehead instinctively to check his temperature again. They didn't have a thermometer lying around that Joe could stick in Rico's mouth, but he knew that Rico was burning up just from feeling. Boy, was he hot. Hotter than he was before by a big margin. This was serious.

Rico coughed a few times more, and muttered something vaguely about a cowboy nurse. He was off in the land of fever, running on the hellish dunes that were the borderline between sleep and sickness. 

"Shit, you're feverish." The man under the covers closed his eyes tighter against Joe's shaking of his shoulder. Joe felt keen fear suddenly, and he rocked the bed back and forth subconsciously. Something he hadn't considered before had drifted into his mind suddenly, the type of thought you had alone on dark nights, that suppose Rico's fever didn't break at all. Suppose it decided to go on and on whilst Rico sunk deeper into whatever illness that had him in its grips, as Joe stood by unable to help him. He'd seen it happen before, Rico getting sick in that particular way, seen how scary it was to see Rico so out of it. A never ending fever. Not ending until Rico was... No. He turned to address Rico.

"Rico, you're burning up." Joe looked around the apartment for a flannel or a piece of cloth, something he could soak and lay on Rico's head desperately.

"Wadda hell am I supposed to do about it?" Rico sniffed, tired of being disturbed by the distant blurry figure that was in his room, who was interrupting his Florida holiday. Rude cowboy, stomping around the place. He hoped the guy wouldn't bring the horse he'd rode in on with him to stay, too. This place wasn't a stable, after all.

 

"Aw, goddammit, you need a doctor." It was fruitless talking to Rico. Joe had a responsibility on his hands, a sick kid that needed help. He realized he had to get a doctor, despite knowing what kind of ruckus Rico would raise if he woke up and saw a man with a stethoscope hung around his neck checking him over. Well, that was just too bad. Rico was too far gone to decide for himself. It was all on him, now, Joe Buck, to do the right thing.

He found a rag on the floor after some disordered searching, a chunk of a hand towel ripped from its source, and set to work running it under the tap.

"It's Rico... Rico Rizzo, not Ratso. You hear?" Rico mumbled to himself behind him, moving to lie on his back and stare at the ceiling.

"I hear ya, I hear ya." Joe muttered, placing the dripping rag on Rico's forehead. Rico sighed softly, and for a moment Joe swore he saw steam coming off of him. He saw that it was going to do its job, at least cool him down a little. It had to. It had to.

"I'm going to get a doctor, okay, Rico?" Joe said, more to himself than anyone, standing in the doorway, scrambling for his hat on the hanger.

"Nuh-uh." Rico had decided that in the gentle eternity of his dreams, he was actually fond of the cowboy that had taken up residence in his room after all, even if he was rude and kind of annoying at times. Rico couldn't bare the idea of the cowboy taking leave at a time like this, trotting off away into the sunset without him. He'd be alone, then. Rico shook his head.

"Don't go. Don't want'cha to go." Rico said thickly, swallowing. His voice was so pitiful it made Joe's heart ache. 

"Rico-" Joe cried exasperatedly, hands by his sides limply. His friend was giving him trouble without even knowing it, he thought. More trouble than he could know. 

"I got to go! You're sick. Why, I- you, you could die!" Joe protested.

"Uh uh. Stay." Rico insisted. "Stay here."

Joe, caught and conflicted, glanced from Rico stranded on the island that was the bed, in the middle of the ocean that was the condemned building, and then to the staircase. All he had to do was bound down there quick, fast as hell, just a few flights, and come back with a doctor. Money wouldn't be a problem, he'd find some way to cover the fees. He'd be back in half an hour at most.

He stood still, listening to Rico's rasping voice, biting his lip. But what if, what if, the sadistic little voice in Joe's head whispered, while he was gone, suppose Rico was to- he shook the thought away. Rico wasn't going to die. He wouldn't let him. 

"Joe?" 

"I'm here." Joe said finally, at the mention of his name. He stepped into the room, sighing, taking one last look at the staircase and shutting the door behind him. "I'm here, Rico."

"Good of you, Tex." Rico managed a smile, looking so small in the bed. For a moment it sounded like Rico was lucid to Joe, like he was back to his old sarcastic self, but the next string of words disproved that. 

"Thanks a bunch. These flowers are really nice." Rico whispered quickly, his cheeks red. 

Joe frowned, furrowing his brow. Did he hear that right? "I ain't got you no flowers, boy." He drew closer to Rico, tilting his head to look at the man curiously.

"Where'd ya get em?" Rico blinked his eyes open to look at Joe, and Joe looked back at him with surprise. It was the fever. The goddamn fever was spinning Rico's poor brain around like a kid riding the teacups, making him say these things. 

Joe knew that well enough, knew what it was like to be off sick from school with a summer fever as a kid, delirious, whilst his grandma cooked him chicken soup and soothed him. She used sit by him patiently and pat his head, tell him stories when he was bawling, stories with happy endings where the hero ran off with the girl. She had been good to him, old Sally Buck. He'd learnt a thing or two from her. 

Joe pulled up a chair hesitantly and settled close to Rico's bed. He played along. "I picked them in a field. I forget what- what they are."

"Roses, idiot. They're roses. You don't know what roses look like?" Rico hissed sharply, like Joe had been dumb, and it startled Joe enough to make him laugh. It was good to hear Rico talk, made him less scared, even if he was talking mostly nonsense. 

Joe reached out to hold Rico's clammy hand in his own, made braver for the bite in Rico's words. He was about to say something else, prompt Rico on about these mystery flowers that he'd supposedly given him, when Rico said another thing which struck him funny. 

"And I don't think your horse likes me much." Rico continued, squeezing Joe's hand in response weakly.

"My horse?" Joe asked in bemusement.

"Yeah, your horse. Don't take this personal or anything, but-" Rico coughed, and went on to explained the sad situation at hand, which was that every time he tried to feed Joe's horse, the horse would snort and whinny and knock the apple he had right out of his hand. It wouldn't even let him pet it, for Christ's sake. It liked Joe better, and that was fair, he supposed, but how the hell was he supposed to ride it with Joe if it kept bucking him off? 

"I think it's got something against me." Rico finished. 

Joe got up to change the rag over Rico's head. He rung it out by the sink and placed it fresh and cold on Rico's head again, moving like clockwork. Im the meantime he listened to Rico's rambling, like he was a devoted follower of Ratso Rizzo's Radio talk-show, resting by the side of the bed and propping himself up on his hands comfortably. He listened until the fever broke.

\--------

In Florida, Joe sat by the pool next to Rico. Rico was sunning himself, wearing those ridiculous shades and smiling lazily in a way that suggested he was aware of how ridiculous they were. Joe, no longer dressed like the cowboy that had charmed Rico so during the night of the fever, carried on his talk, sure that he'd amuse Rico when he got to the end of the tale. Usually when they talked of the old times in New York, it made both Joe and Rico a little sad, but this story, it was too funny not to tell.

"-So, you go and thank me for the flowers I got you, and meanwhile I'm over there thinking you're dying or something."

Rico grimaced, embarrassed. "Jesus, I'm glad I don't remember any of that stuff."

"It still tickles me, Rico, to tell the truth. I mean, goddamn, you thought I was a for real cowboy, and that I had a horse!"


End file.
